The Hungry Ghost
by buttmagoo
Summary: Hun goes into heat and captures Raph to satisfy his urges. Some changes happen to Raphael's body before he can be rescued. ((Warnings: Rape, non-con, oviposition [forced pregnancy], mind break)) COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

((Warnings: Rape, non-con, oviposition [forced pregnancy], mind break))  
Hun/Raph

This takes place after the events of Turtles Forever, where Hun was mutated into a large turtle.

xXx

Hun never liked the heat.

His living arrangements have changed throughout the years but one thing that never did was the strict fifteen degrees he kept his room whenever possible.

Until now. His new body craves warmth, finding unique pleasure in laying out in the sun. He used to find the very idea of sunbathing mind numbing, but now it's a fulfilling, private and almost meditative experience. Despite everything, after a day in the sun he could almost say he's at peace, skin warmed and buzzing pleasantly.

Green skin.

Hun sneers.

Still, the contentment remains, and he stands, returning to his home before the cold of the night ruins what little pleasures he can find in this life.

He lost his master. He lost his home. He lost his clan. He has lost his humanity. All that remains is his flesh, such as it is, his knowledge, his training. Nothing else.

It will be fall soon, and then winter. How will this new body endure the intense cold? Hun can't begin to guess. If those damn turtles weren't around, he would assume that it would be impossible for him to survive a New York winter. But if those damn turtles weren't around, a lot of things would be different.

How did they manage it when they were still living in that sewer?

He lives in a cave for now, private and remote, but he doubts it will meet his needs much longer. The dirt floor is unnaturally cold, and summer will end, leaves will dry out, grow brittle and drop to the forest floor.

The south is the only real answer, though he dreads the idea of traveling any significant distance. He knows the turtles often do so, even walk in secret among normal humans, and while Hun is capable of stealth there are limits to his abilities. He is even larger than he was as human, and there are no coats, no jackets, no hats, no scarfs or gloves that will hide the fact that he is a monster.

The turtles have soft faces, human-like faces. Their bodies are humanoid and their expressions are recognizable; fear, happiness, understanding. Hun's face is a threatening mask no matter what expression he makes. His teeth are jagged edges, spikes protrude from his skin. While some might be afraid and confused by the four turtles – Hun is a nightmare to all, an unmistakable predator, something that would make the smallest child weep.

It's an inconvenience.

And if he's not going to leave New York this year, he will have to come up with something.

He waits until the moon is fat in the sky to move down to the city, in the shadows, slow and careful. There is a small hardware store with nothing more than a deadbolt in the back, easily ripped apart by Hun's claws. He briefly contemplates stealing some sort of truck, the supplies he needs will mean more than one trip otherwise, but what immediately available vehicle would actually hold his weight and size? He scowls and begins piling his stolen goods for this multiple trips to the edge of the forest.

The streets are silent for the majority of his runs, until it reaches last call. The drunkards begin stumbling out of various dives, on their way home. Easily avoided, but an annoyance.

Hun is carrying a particularly large bundle of lumber and tools when he hears the familiar clicking of heels on concrete. He ducks into the shadows.

The woman passes by, staring down at her phone. Tall heels and a short skirt. Sweaty, messy, stumbling. On her way home from a club, maybe.

Her body is healthy and young, her curves wide and ripe, and they move with a particular sway and bounce that once set Hun's entire world into sharp, heated focus . . .

Even now, he would have sex with this woman, if the opportunity presented itself, and he would likely enjoy it, but the _need_ that's been a constant companion since puberty is heavily muted. A simple idea, interesting, certainly, but not a compelling drive.

This loss is so thorough that Hun doesn't even feel frustrated or angered by the realization of its absence. It simply rolls off his back. Just one more example of the life that's been stolen from him.

It is strange. He was often in missions where he could not be seen, and often had to account for quick escapes, but a terrified mob is a new threat. Blending into a crowd was never easy but it was possible, and is no longer an option.

After the seventh slovenly drunk had forced Hun to hide in the darkness of an alley in only three blocks, he decides to go for height, scaling the side of a brick building with his thus-far unbreakable claws.

This area once belonged to the Purple Dragons, but the tags have been painted over.

Generic graffiti, aged, with posters plastered on top of that. Not even a feud with a rival power. These streets belong to the city, now. Despite the rejection of his clan, Hun still feels the bitter loss and even pointless worry about just how far the Purple Dragon territory has been pushed back. As he jumps from rooftop to rooftop and sees more evidence of the Purple Dragon's defeat, his dismay grows.

Were they truly dismantled without his leadership? He imagines it returning to a band of thugs in a warehouse, the strongest of his men covering their tattoos with long sleeves and collars, trying to move on, and his blood heats with rage.

"You're dreamin, bro!"

Jones.

He can recognize that idiotic, barking laughter several rooftops away and he's grateful for the universe to have sent him the object of his hatred just when he most needed to pummel it. Hun carefully sets aside his stolen goods and moves swift and silent, circling around.

Jones isn't alone, a turtle friend, no doubt Raphael, is there with him. They're sloppy, unaware of Hun stalking from above, seated on the roof of an apartment complex, watching a small television set. Laughing and rough housing. Are they drunk? There are several cans littered around them, they've obviously been there for some time.

Here, finally, is something that hasn't been dampened, altered or mutated at all: Hun's sense of primal joy out of swooping down and smashing their skulls.

"Well, well, well," Hun snickers, and the two turn, jumping in surprise. But he was right, they are drunk. They're taken off guard and it's embarrassingly quick.

"Wha – _Hun?_"

"Case, watch it – !"

Hun stands over Jones's limp body. Any disappointment with the lack of fight immediately overpowered by the pure sense of power. It's a rush, and such a change from the constant bitterness and frustration of his new life that Hun would be willing to do anything to make it last. He actually finds his breath catching with excitement at the idea of crushing this little man's throat, tossing the limp and broken body off the edge of the building, hearing it crack and break against the streets below –

But his gaze keeps being drawn to Raphael.

Fine then, he will kill the turtle first. He kicks Raphael's limp body to the side, watching it tumble, roll. Raphael groans in unconscious protest from the pain, and Hun smiles wider, kicking his body again, like a child kicking a stone. Raphael slams into the side of the building, dropping back to the ground. His breath is pained, and he curls in on himself instinctively.

Yes, _yes_. Hun's entire body is purring with satisfaction as he lifts Raphael up by his head, body swaying limp. Hun is indeed larger now, and he can appreciate this in a new way, in how Raphael's entire head fits in the palm of his hand, and how easy it would be to squeeze.

A noise.

Hun stops and listens, casting around as he remembers his own monstrous appearance, how he can't afford to be seen. But the noise is far too close for a bystander. Is . . . he actually purring? No, it's not quite a purr, but it's definitely a noise coming from his own self, from the enjoyment of being able to do as he pleases with Raphael.

Jones groans, starting to wake, trying to lift himself on shaking arms. But Hun's interest in the man has minimized. He wants to explore this new feeling, explore what exactly it is about Raphael that brought it about. He jostles Jones cruelly as he passes him, carrying Raphael from rooftop to rooftop, and then to the outskirts of the city, to the forest, to his cave.

The turtle is thoroughly unconscious. It's not stillness that convinces Hun of this, but groans of pain when Hun cuts into Raphael's flesh with his claws. He knows the creature is too proud to allow such sounds of weakness to escape while awake, and Hun leaves the turtle in the cave, unattended and unrestrained, as he makes several trips back with his stolen goods.

Hun was never a kind man, but his hatred was hatred, and his lust was lust, and they existed a world apart. The enjoyment of causing pain and suffering never crossed his mind when there was a woman in his bed. He felt no need to exert his dominance there, not when his sheer physical size and mastery of his body made it so very apparent. Most of his time in bed, in fact, had been doing his best to reduce any ripping or bruises – a particularly delicious exercise in control.

What about this mutation has changed that?

He shakes with the eagerness of a teenager, dropping Raphael on the floor of his cave, wanting to pin his limp body there, where it falls, wanting to squeeze at Raphael's arms and leave dark, bruising marks. Wants him to bleed, and to cry out. He huffs in excitement as he paces around his new companion. He does not want to kill him, not at all. He wants him there, in his cave, in his – territory. His mate.

The thought is a disturbing one, and Hun takes a step away from it in his mind. He has always been good at this, compartmentalizing unwanted urges, suppressing them until they shriveled to nothing.

But . . . why bother?

There are no downsides. If he is ashamed and disgusted with himself afterward, he can simply kill the creature as originally planned. The turtles were rarely able to overpower them without numbers before, and Hun is even stronger now. Thick, durable skin and rapid healing, greater strength. He does not see the single, small, soft skinned turtle as a threat. No, the only struggle is coming to terms with the concept itself, allowing himself to act on what he is well aware would've been a vomit inducing concept in his right, human mind.

But then – the turtles, this turtle in particular, caused this. This thing owes him what little it can offer to give Hun some relief from this new hell. And if it causes Raphael pain and humiliation in the process – all the better.

He will need restraints.

He returns for one last trip to the city.

xXx

"How does it work?"

Raphael groans but doesn't answer. Hun narrows his eyes in arousal and annoyance. It's been a full day and night and Raphael has not woken. Hun wants answers, and it is annoying that the creature isn't giving them. But then again, it's arousing that he can't.

"Wake up," Hun says, shaking the little turtle impatiently. He's begun to consider the possibility that he handled Raphael too roughly and he won't be waking again at all, when his eyes fly open, jerking into action, but the metal chains at his arms and neck restrain his wild movements.

"What the – " Raphael says, calming down enough to take in his new surroundings, and his captor. He blinks up at Hun's face, confusion turning to muted rage – he is still disoriented from the head wound.

"How does it work?" Hun repeats shortly.

Raphael groans as though bored, eyes falling shut again. "Fuck off, Hun."

"Impudent," Hun sneers, and backhands the turtle to keep his interest, the long claws at the ends of his fingers leaving two long, red scratches across his face. "Answer the question."

"I don't even know what you're asking," Raphael says, glaring.

Hun growls, and paces. After a day in the sun and contemplating Raphael's limp form, Hun has worked out his own side – his erection is human-like, hidden until needed, until Hun coaxes it out. It took stimulation, though it was a distinct shift of muscle that Hun believes he can master at will with time.

What he cannot figure out is – the other half.

He does not believe his body, his instincts, would crave this creature as a mate if there was no possible way to consummate the act, but then again, they are both freakish nightmares, parodies of humanity, unnatural, and this could just be the echos of a once possible act.

The creature at his feet no doubt knows with certainty, but Hun finds himself flustered at the prospect of explaining any of this.

It puts Raphael in a position of power over him, Raphael with the knowledge, which Hun does not want. He twists his face into something even uglier than its resting state, and grabs Raphael's leg.

"Hey!" the turtle yelps.

Hun ignores this, lifting the leg up harshly, checking at Raphael's crotch, and then below, toward his tail.

"Back off!" Raph barks out, obviously startled by this form of attack. He kicks out his free leg, and Hun shifts, easily pinning the tiny, flailing limb with his own knee. "Ah – fuck, Hun – get offa me!"

Hun can feel the delicate muscle and bone twisting under his own knee.

Knee injuries are a particularly cruel injury. They never quite heal properly, growing weaker with use instead of stronger, the beginning of an inevitable decline for any martial artist, a pain that is sometimes ignored but never fully healed. Hun smiles. He lifts his own knee, then slams it back down.

"_Augh!_" Raphael cries out. Hun digs his knee down into Raphael's and can feel something shift where it shouldn't, two distinct pieces rubbing against each other under Raphael's flesh. Raphael roars, eyes go wide and blank with pain.

Hun smile fades. He can feel his own hardness, and the urge sobers him, reminding him of the task at hand. He presses his thumb along the underside of Raphael's tail, searching. He drags along the tender, vulnerable flesh until he finds an indent. Raphael lets out an unintelligible squawk as Hun investigates this hole. It's wide, enough to sink Hun's thumb in with enough pressure.

"What the fuck," Raphael gasps out, tears in his voice from his demolished knee. "What are you – "

He can't seem to finish the question. He must know, and the answer must sicken him. Terrify him. Pleased beyond belief, mind practically humming with lust, Hun brings the turtle's ankle to his mouth, and bites down gently. Then he travels the length of it, feeling Raphael begin to shake in fear.

He can _smell_ it. He can smell the fear, and there's that sound again. More of a churring noise than anything else.

"You're mine," Hun says, biting down again on Raphael's inner thigh, loving the way his entire body tenses with discomfort, fear, struggling in Hun's grip like a child. Weak.

"_No,_" Raphael says, eyes shut tight. "You've lost it, Hun, you're fucking crazy."

"Maybe," Hun says, inserting his finger, and Raphael arches his back, trying to escape it. "But the fact remains that you're too weak to say otherwise. You are mine."

"My brothers are gonna find me," Raphael says, voice suddenly calm. "And they're gonna kill you."

"Hm. No loss," Hun says, and licks the blood drying on Raphael's face. He is not suicidal, simply realistic. The man he once was is dead. He's nothing more than a walking, hungry ghost, ruled only by his wants. He will not be surprised when someone exorcises that from the world. Until then . . .

"What's this?" Hun asks. A tiny piece of metal, stuck firmly to the overhang of Raphael's shell. It is homemade, no doubt something from Donatello, and very obviously a tracking device. It's fixed so firmly to Raphael's shell that Hun has to scrape it off rather cruelly, and Raphael grits his teeth at the sensation. Hun smiles, following a strange, possessive urge to bite down briefly on Raphael's soft cheek, then leaves the cave.

The forest around them is small, and he spans the length of it in nearly a day. Along the outskirts, just on the other side of a wooden fence, Hun finds a large, gaping hole, undoubtedly once a well. He sticks the tracking device to a stone, and drops them both down the opening. After a long pause, Hun hears a splash. He smiles and begins the trip home, doubling back multiple times and covering his tracks, though he doubts he has any real cause to worry.

The turtles are sloppy and reactionary. They will be looking for their brother, but have always depended heavily on the slip ups of their enemies. Hun will be giving nothing, he wants no ransom, has no reason to contact them whatsoever. An empty void of clues outside of an abandoned well will leave them directionless.

The sun has begun to set by the time Hun returns to the front of his cave, and he is hungry. He snaps the neck of a doe, easily cutting its flesh with nothing more than his own claws, and beginning to roast.

Of course Raphael kicks away any offering of food. That will change with time, and Hun smiles, enjoying the show of pride. It will only make the eventual surrender even sweeter.

"Clever," Hun says when he sees the turtle has somehow managed to wrap his knee, taking the pads from his uninjured leg and elbows, applying pressure. Then he narrows his eyes. Just how had he managed that? Lifting his injured leg up to his bound hands? Raphael glares hatefully, obviously following Hun's train of thought but giving away nothing.

Surely he'd be long gone if he'd managed to loosen the bounds, but Hun is still anxious at the unexpected move. Before going to sleep for the night, he grabs his extra cloth, binding Raphael's upper arms and hands, wrapping them tight and secure, rendering his fingers useless.

Raphael is spitting with rage, tugging wildly against the restraints, and it's a lovely lullaby.

In the morning, he fucks Raphael.

The creature is impossibly tight, and Hun is not patient. It's over quickly and he regrets it in the aftermath. He'd gone at it like an animal, humping brutally, holding Raphael's legs wide apart, staring down at a face still soft and confused with sleep, then quickly filled with rage and fear and raw agony. There was blood, and it had been – satisfying, deeply so, like following every raw, indulgent and disgusting instinct is. He had barely managed to shove more than half of himself inside the small creature, moving with all the grace of a dumb animal, and can't imagine what the ridiculous display must've looked like from the outside.

He feels embarrassment as he leaves the cave, Raphael's hateful gaze on his back.

Hun climbs to his designated meditation area, to wait for the sun to rise properly, relishing its warmth. Today he will begin the project of making his home livable through this winter. He will only insulate the walls in the innermost of the cave, but anything that seals out the cold will also seal out the light. This was not something that had bothered him before. He does not mind the darkness, and when he misses the light he can simply step out on warmer days. But now that he has a captive, one mounted to his wall . . .

He ruminates over the full implications of this, and accepts it. It is simply Raphael's unfortunate lot in life, just as Hun's is to become his most hated creature, a living parable.

Raphael will become a creature of the dark. In summer Hun will dismantle the wooden walls that will block out the light, and that will have to be enough. Perhaps they will spend another year here, Hun imagines it will take that long at least to prepare to travel south.

Will Raphael join him in his journey? Will Raphael still be alive to do so? It will depend, when the time comes. At the moment Hun finds the idea appealing.

He thinks about his mate at length, and firms his resolve – there are several bottles of oil and grease in his pile of supplies, and Hun searches through them, reading the labels. Some are acidic, and won't do. Some would've been enough if Hun hadn't left Raphael's rear an open wound. He finds a brand of water soluble cutting fluid that is slick against his fingers.

"Piece of trash," Raphael lets out a stream of stuttering, pointless insults as Hun prepares him, rubbing the fluid against his swollen and sluggishly bleeding entrance. "Fucking – shit. Steam coming off of shit, not even the shit itself. Just a – a – _augh!_ Worthless, motherless, idi – fuck – fuck you – "

"It hurts?" Hun asks, knowing the answer as he slowly slides in again, and Raphael can't form a response, mouth moving noiselessly.

"Mm, yes," Hun says, pleased with this. Raphael is twitching with pain, but this is remarkably better than the first try and when Raphael has been able to heal, their mating will improve even more. Some of the tension drains from Raphael's body as the motions continue, the pain subsiding slightly as they mate.

Mating. Hun has never thought of the act as such, and he's never thought of his own come as seed, but the base nature of their act is suddenly very apparent, and arouses him deeply.

Raphael is taking Hun's cock, his body shifting with each of Hun's thrusts. Everything about his movement, the healthy flush of his youthful face, the scent of his reluctant arousal, telling Hun's baser instincts that he is mounting a fertile and willing mate, ready for Hun's seed.

"Aah," Hun breathes out when he comes, thrusting deep, and delicious, accomplished satisfaction settles over him.

Raphael's erection is half hard and only a barely visible slit of green, his lower plastron bulging just slightly. Hun considers it. The sounds of his mate's arousal would certainly be appealing, but the deed has been done. They have mated and Hun is satisfied with that.

Although.

Hun plucks the red mask from Raphael's head, and is somewhat surprised to see Raphael's eyes are glistening, moist.

"You're not a member of that clan any longer," Hun says, and tosses the red cloth aside. "Should get you a purple tattoo," he says with a mocking grin, scratching his nail across the surface of Raphael's skin. "Right up your arm."

"As if anyone's a fucking Purple Dragon anymore," Raphael laughs, sounding more than a little off balance. "Your old club's gone, pal. We stomped those losers out months ago. Didn't even put up a fight. Gangs laugh when old Purple Dragons try to join up, they're a walking joke – "

Hun grips the turtle's wounded knee and squeezes harshly. Raphael lets out a wild scream, the loudest noise he's heard from his mate since his capture.

"Fucker," Raph growls at him. Without his mask, his face is even softer, eyes wide and almost childlike. Nothing like Hun's inhuman, white slits. Raphael's irises are a pleasing shade of yellow, his pupils standing out sharpy against the paleness of the color. Hun never had a preference for eye color, but did find blue eyes more vulnerable because of a similar affect, and he approves of this in his mate. "What are you staring at?" Raphael snarls, voice shaking with impotent rage.

"You have lovely eyes," Hun says, smiling wide at Raphael's disgusted, horrified reaction.

xXx

He begins work on the floor first. This will take the longest, but is the most essential. An escape from the stinging cold against his feet – against Raphael's entire lower half.

The ground is part stone and unforgiving, and as a human Hun would have struggled, even with advanced equipment. Now all he needs is a shovel and his hands. When he reaches a particularly stubborn or hard patch of ground, he simply slams down one gigantic, powerful fist, and it cracks easily.

After he has dug deep enough, he will lay down the insulating pads, then several layers of solid wood on top of that, a smooth and even foundation to build the walls.

It takes two weeks, but they do not fuck again until his mate has fully healed. It is particularly difficult, as Hun has become very sensitive to the smell of Raphael, and it is a constant, delicious taunt. He weathers it out of distaste at himself for causing the damage to begin with, and gets to know his mate's body in other ways.

Raphael hides his arousal well, biting hard on his own lip before moaning, but his smells betray him. Hun laps at his slit, licking slow and steady, enjoying the sight and smells of his mate, how his toes curl as he tries to hold back any response.

And Raphael is such a stubborn thing. It takes nearly four days from his initial capture before he'll accept any food, and when he realizes Hun is not going to loosen his restraints, that he will be fed from Hun's own hand, another two days on top of that. When he finally caves, he's too weak to do anything more than glare as Hun slips the pieces of meat into his mouth.

"This will be your undoing," Hun says, plainly amused by his mate, and the way he's too weak to lift his head from where it's sagged onto his own arm. "Your stubbornness will be the death of you, eventually."

"Fuck off," Raphael grumbles, but eats healthily from that day on, anything Hun brings home.

Raphael begins to respond to Hun's scent as well, though Hun does not believe he realizes it. Pupils going fat and round, his mouth loosening just slightly, when he used to scowl and spit if Hun got close enough.

His mate has only had his brothers and humans before – Hun is the first adult male of his own kind that Raphael's been exposed to, and Hun wonders if he's feeling similar, instinctual needs.

Hun is curious to watch this progress so he does not mock the turtle for it, does not so much as mention it, waiting to see the extent of this change.

He expects a fight when the time comes to move Raphael, in order to finish the floor. He rips the metal link from the wall and lifts Raphael, bracing for the futile attack.

There is none. Raphael just rolls his shoulders, obviously relieved at the chance to have his arms down at his side, instead of forced at a cruel angle above him. Honestly, Raphael's discomfort hadn't even occurred to Hun. He slams the metal link into the wall much lower this time, low enough that Raphael is able to rest his arms in his lap, but the realization sits in Hun's mind for the next three hours, as he finishes the floor.

He begins to wonder if Raphael craves the heat as much as Hun. It would only make sense. It would also explain the lack of fight – the turtle's color is an unhealthy one, and he moves sluggishly. Clumsily.

Hun unwraps the bindings, which have made impressive indents in Raphael's skin. Raphael's breath catches as he's able to move his fingers again, twisting his wrists slowly. How long has it been? Almost a month. Hun stares at the indents of the turtle's own fingers against his palm. Hun allows Raphael to run his hands over his arms, as much as the chains allow, then begins replacing the bindings again.

"_No_," Raphael says, seemingly before he can stop himself. He looks away, ashamed of the blatant crack in his composure. That was not a proud, boasting protest. That was a desperate, instinctive plea.

"Just for now," Hun says, gruffly. Raphael is thoroughly restrained once again when Hun carries him out, into the bright, noonday sun. Raphael shivers madly in Hun's arms for the first few moments, doesn't protest when Hun runs his hands up and down his arms. After an hour or so of silence, he's warmed decently, relaxing somewhat against Hun's front.

Hun wants to ask about his life in the sewer.

Was it cold, like his cave? Is he used to this kind of chill? Or were there grates where sun broke through? Did he sneak up to the surface? Did the rat keep watch as his cold blooded students drank in the sun's rays?

He will never ask.

He runs his hand down Raphael's front, cupping his crotch, finding his entrance. Raphael winces, shifting in a way that does not impede or assist Hun's goal.

They fuck, Hun moving slow, enjoying this moment – Raphael's scent, stronger than it's ever been. Enjoying the sun, and the tightness of his mate.

There's that now familiar churring noise, but a slightly higher pitch, and when Hun realizes it's coming from his mate – his pleased and cock-filled mate – he about goes mad with lust. He churrs in response, hurrying the pace of their fucking, growing rougher, forcing Raphael down, filling him more.

"Yesss," Hun hisses, licking at his mate's neck, the taste and the scent pleasing him deeply.

Raphael's breath hitches, a hiccup in the arousing churrs, and Hun realizes after a moment that it is tears. Defeated, broken tears. Still, Raphael churrs and spreads his legs, and is fucked. Hun runs a pleased hand across the lower portion of Raphael's stomach, imagining he can feel his cock there, and when he comes, that he can feel his seed spreading, claiming his mate.

He does not soften immediately and stays in his mate, stroking his own hardness and watching the way he twists, entranced by his display, the way he softens when he comes.

He carries Raphael back inside, and places him on the more forgiving, wooden floor that he's finished, and feels as though he completed it just for his mate, to ease some of his suffering, and he enjoys the sense of accomplishment.


	2. Chapter 2

Coyotes are a familiar sight in the forest around them, one of the many small, easily spooked creatures that Hun ignores. He hasn't seen anything larger than a black bear, and suspects there are very few naturally occurring creatures anywhere that would pose a real threat to his new body. He feels an untouchable, almost godlike power as he crushes through the trees, unconcerned with stealth.

But Raphael is powerless.

As expected, his knee has not healed properly, and with his hands restrained, he's left with only one leg to defend himself.

Hun returns home to find three scrawny, hungry coyotes at the entrance of the cave, obviously trying to figure out if the creature inside is wounded, darting in and out and yipping to one another excitedly.

Hun is irrationally angered by this, as if the animals should've known Raphael is _Hun's_, in _Hun's_ territory, and he is cruel when defending his mate, hearing bones snap under his large hands when throwing them to the side. They whine and whimper as they drag themselves off.

He smells blood. His mate's blood.

In a surge of anger, he snaps the neck of the animal he's holding, dropping the body, he moves into the cave, and sees Raphael's grit teeth, harsh breathing, and bloody leg. Hun frowns at the scratches, most shallow, but a few deep slices into his mate's soft skin, a large bite on his lower leg bleeding freely. The cut is deep, and Raphael huffs out in pain as Hun examines it. The muscles have been badly mangled, as if the animal was trying to drag him off, and Hun is unsure of how this will heal.

Thankfully, Raphael does not need to walk on order to meet Hun's needs.

Silently, Hun begins tending to the wound with what little he has available. He did not gather his supplies anticipating many injuries, and so far, he, himself, has had none. If there is an infection, Hun may have to cut off the leg. He says none of this to Raphael, who is gripping the chains around his wrists, doing his best to weather the pain.

Unnecessary pain.

Hun selected this cave thinking only of hiding from human eyes, and now, viewing it from a random creature of the forest, sees it as ridiculously open and unprotected without Hun there to keep watch. He will have to be more careful about this in the future.

It is irrational, like so many of the urges Hun is following lately, but he feels some sort of repentance as he feeds Raphael the meat of the coyote that attacked him that day. Once Raphael has had his fill, he fills him in another way, moving at a much slower pace than usual. Parting Raphael's legs and spending as long as he can stand on preparation, using his tongue and his fingers, until Raphael's teeth are gritted and his hands are clenching for a much more pleasurable reason.

Raphael is his. His. It never seems more obvious than when Raphael is hopelessly impaled on his cock, legs spread wide for Hun's much larger size, face flushed in surrender. The display is satisfying, and with the threat that tried to harm Raphael still siting in the entrance of the cave, defeated, Hun feels as though it is a performance for the forest at large, a warning to anyone who would attempt to harm his mate again.

The wound heals quickly, and to Hun's surprise, cleanly, with no undue redness or swelling.

Making sure not to drift far from his cave, Hun enjoys the following weeks in a sort of carefree way, as though experiencing an adolescence he was never able to have the first time around.

He sits with Raphael out into the sun as much as possible, cradling him in its warmth, often mating four or five times before returning to his cave. Raphael seems to enjoy this as well, churring loudly, even, at times, riding Hun's cock with some eagerness, jamming himself back onto it again and again, thrusting up against Hun's hand.

His eyes glaze over in a similar trance to what Hun feels, when he's consumed by the instincts of his new body, pounding them into Raphael's wet and eager hole.

Seeing Raphael in his state, Hun imagines that his mate has learned to find pleasure in the idea of being fucked by Hun, taking his seed, submitting, perhaps even the idea of carrying Hun's young, because there is no mistaking the goal of their coupling. This is not recreational sex, it is instinctive and base, and perhaps only Raphael's body has come to accept this, on that level. Perhaps Raphael's higher thought still fights, and is still forced into pleasurable surrender every time Hun enters him.

Or perhaps he's escaping in his mind, falling deep inside himself, a form of catatonia, and what Hun sees as blissful surrender is nothing but an abandoned shell.

The idea of that angers Hun, and the next time he sees Raphael's eyes beginning to blank out, he plants his hands on either side of his head, looming over his mate.

"Where are you going?" he asks, pushing his face close. He will not be ignored.

Raphael blinks rapidly, confused. "Wha?"

"Do you feel this?"

"Feel – what? You?"

Hun grins, rocking in deeper, the motions slow and grinding, a particular way that never fails to make Raphael churr. It works, Raphael tips his head back. Eyes glazing again.

"Tell me," Hun says, biting on Raphael's shoulder to get his attention. Their fucking is strictly silent outside of groans and gasps and whatever else, this is the first time he's attempted to speak, and he finds himself enjoying it. It's obvious, now, that Raphael is not escaping like he had feared. "What am I doing to you, Raphael?"

"You – you're – "

"Tell me," Hun demands, though he's actually fond of the way Raphael's eyes go wide in panic, casting around as he tries and fails to string together a coherent thought.

"You're fucking me," Raphael says, like it hurts.

"Would you like me to stop?" Hun taunts, cradling Raphael's own leaking cock in a firm grip, teasing his tail, and Raphael chokes on his response, shaking his head mindlessly.

"I don't want this," Raphael says thickly. "I don't wanna be like this. This is – it's all – it's all fucked up."

It's an almost shocking admittance of how much Raphael is enjoying this, how much he needs it, a deeper and more honest condemnation than Hun could've imagined. Raphael hates that he doesn't hate it anymore.

"I'm going to fill you up now," Hun says. "Fill you with my come until it overflows. It belongs in you, doesn't it?"

"_Fuck_ no," Raphael actually punches at Hun's shoulder, but it's as weak as his protests.

"You love it," Hun hisses, and knows it's true when Raphael howls with rage, then comes right after Hun, churring with the satisfaction of being filled.

There's silence, for quite some time. When Raphael speaks again, it sounds almost childlike, obviously not expecting to be heard or listened to. "I wanna go home."

Hun feels something akin to pity, but he knows now it is far too late.

Even if Raphael did escape, he has been permanently altered by this experience, he will never have a place with his brothers again, never fit in the seamless row of four. Hun's ownership has been imprinted deep inside him, something no one else will ever be able to mend, a void nothing else will ever fill.

Beyond that – Raphael's body is literally changing.

Nothing as subtle as twitches of his mouth or dilating eyes; real changes, something Hun can see even in the dim star light. Raphael is growing wet.

Hun pulls back his fingers in surprise, staring down at the slick fluid he finds there. It smells of Raphael, his unmistakable scent, rich and heady. He returns his hand down to Raphael's opening, rubbing gently, watching Raphael's face, watching his eyes close as though – as though sensitive there, when before it took much more prodding, much deeper, to get that kind of reaction.

He opens for Hun's cock with ease, and it feels as though he's fitted just for Hun, designed and custom-made, the changes so surreal and so pleasing Hun isn't sure what to make of it all other than to utilize them, over and over. This has to be a result of Hun, perhaps of Hun's mutation – the constant exposure to Hun's demands, his pheromones, somehow rewriting Raphael's body.

They would mate daily before, but now, with these new tantalizing changes, and the comfort of the new surroundings, Hun is insatiable, mounting his mate sometimes multiple times an hour, thrusting wildly, Raphael often still panting from one orgasm while Hun begins yet again, the sight itself setting him aflame, a self-feeding cycle.

He has become so in tune with his mate's body, he has no doubt when what Hun's warped, instinct driven mind told him is correct:

Raphael is fertile. He can feel the beginning changes, and they excite him deeply.

"Are you going to give me sons?" Hun asks as he fucks his mate, and Raphael reacts as though it is a taunt, sobbing and shaking his head, though Hun is not intending to be cruel. Simply excited. He runs his hands across Raphael's front, the slightly swollen plastron, praising Raphael for being such a good broodmare, wondering how many Raphael can take, how many are growing inside him.

The idea arouses him deeply, and he can't seem to get enough of his mate, rolling onto his back and watching Raphael struggle with his unsteady and wounded legs, to ride him, legs spread so wide.

It is the beginning of winter when Raphael finally drops his eggs.

The first snowfall is sudden, taking Hun off guard.

He hasn't been keeping track of the days, relying on the changes in the air around him, and while the nights have been cold, the trees have hardly even begun to drop their leaves before that first frost. He has finished the walls as much as possible, but he has not prepared food, or other supplies, there are no coverings, no padding, nothing. He has also decided that they will require a heater of some type, likely kerosene, which will also provide a small source of light.

He makes one last trip to the city for supplies, impatient and quick, and hardly able to believe how long he took the first time around. He is hotly aware of every mile between him and his pregnant mate, and every obstacle that stands in that distance. He does not dither, he is ruthless with locks, uncaring when he triggers an alarm. A blessing that has come with the disbandment of gang activity in this area; the police have grown lazy, and Hun will be gone by the time anyone arrives, and will crush anything that attempts to stop him before that.

Thankfully, nothing does.

He returns to the cave, carrying everything needed, and finds his mate calling out in pain. Raphael is in the middle of laying Hun's eggs. There is one beneath him, large and round, and another slowly dropping, Raphael struggling to bare it as as Hun approaches.

Raphael's eyes are glassy, tears openly pouring down his face. "Augh – _ah_ – ff – fuck – fuck – " He sobs once, then switches to some language similar to Japanese, but not quite. Still, Hun can understand his pleas. Hun has called for his own master often enough to recognize that kind of desperation. He is calling for the rodent.

Hun is overcome with affection for his mate, struggling to bear the weight of what Hun has done to his body. This is no doubt rooted in the turtle half of his mind, but the urge expresses itself in human means. He wants to bring Raphael gifts, he wants to hold that tiny, exhausted body close and pet as he often did in the aftermath of lovemaking when he was still human. He is suddenly, unbearably, proud of his choice in mate for having the strength to endure this.

Raphael stares blankly, arms still mounted above his head, body utterly spent as he gasps for air.

There are two eggs beneath him, perfectly round, and Hun hovers his large hand over them, unsure if it's safe to touch.

"_Aaughh_!" Raphael suddenly chokes, shaking his head.

"Another?" Hun asks, shocked. Raphael is far too tired already, too drained for any more – but there's nothing for it. Raphael's body shakes and he sobs and another, third, final egg emerges.

"Ah," Raphael pants, brokenly. The sight is too much. Hun moans, pulling his mate as close as possible. Limp and spent and unable to resist, Raphael allows it.

What does Raphael think of this? Hun is curious to know, what he makes of these eggs, if there's any attachment whatsoever. Has he continued to fight, held on to his disgust, or, like Hun, has he surrendered to his instincts? Hun pets his shaking shoulder, pressing a kiss to the side of Raphael's sweating forehead.

Raphael has lived with his dual nature his entire life, and surely mastered any instincts his body could offer, there'd be no reason to think he'd suddenly become overwhelmed. But then again, perhaps. He is undoubtedly more accepting of his being, his freakish nature. This could just be another element of acceptance rather than being overpowered, overwhelmed.

Hun does want to ask, but Raphael's mind is clearly asleep, even if his eyes remain open, blinking sluggishly, turning his head deliriously, resting against Hun's chest. Hun cradles the back of his mate's head, stares at his eggs, proud of them all.

With winter comes an exhaustion that goes down to Hun's bones, doziness Hun was not anticipating. He realizes the food will last much longer than he originally thought, not accounting for just how much the two of them would be sleeping.

He settles into an easy routine; mating, eating, sleeping, though Hun has no real sense of time. It is blissful, seeing his mate in the low light of the kerosene heater, his eggs, eating his fill and then dropping to sleep again. At one point Hun wakes, he stares at Raphael's sleeping form with deep affection. He lifts a sleepy hand to undo the chains around Raphael's wrists. He is still restrained by the neck, but it is loose, enough for him to lay down properly, which he does without fully waking, groaning in contentment. Hun pets from his face, down his shoulders, down his side, eyes half lidded in pleasure. He considers mating, but finds the idea exhausting, and simply curls close to Raphael and sleeps instead.

xXx

Raphael's not dead, and Leo can feel it.

It's not really a hopeful or inspiring thing – it's a constant free fall, sand slipping through his fingers, a ticking clock, it's never knowing when Raph's fate is going to slip from his grasp, out of his control. It's also the palpable despair of his brother, at times spiking into terror, waking him up from a dead sleep, or a sudden, cold shove out of meditation. Raph is alive, and he's hurt, he needs his brothers and it's driving Leonardo insane.

It's been five months, and Raphael is alive, and it makes _no sense._

Why would anyone hold onto him for this long? All of their enemies are more efficient than this. They have goals, reasons, a purpose. Unless the goal is just to drive the rest of them insane with worry, they would've heard something by now – two months would be more than enough time to get all they could out of Raphael, and cut him lose in one way or another. Three is just cruel. After four, Leonardo is at a loss.

Because it became obvious pretty quickly that Hun must have given Raph to someone else. Of all their enemies, he'd have the least interest in keeping Raph around for any prolonged reason, and the way Casey described him on the roof didn't sound like someone who had much interest in a living prisoner.

"But then it looked like he remembered something – or something," Casey had said. Suddenly the guy was "all calm and zen," just walking off with Raph, just like that.

Obviously deciding Raphael was valuable enough to _someone _to keep alive. But who would Hun be working with?

Bishop would be willing to take any of them, certainly, but he has new work, a whole new organization, one that's government funded and utterly transparent. Even his side projects, which after weeks of observation from Donnie were summarized as disturbing, but having absolutely nothing to do with Raphael.

"You don't suppose . . . the Foot?"

"No. Shredder's gone," Leo had said, flatly, which was what Donnie was actually asking. Karai would've contacted them by now, surely. But it was still something they checked out, running several reconnaissance missions into the Foot stronghold before accepting that was a dead end, too.

They've searched the forest where they found his tracker, of course, and found nothing. They've searched Hun's old haunts. They've terrorized his old companions, looking for new ones, but it was becoming obvious that no one had seen anything from the man since his mutation.

There are no supernatural leads whatsoever, Raph's presence strictly on this plane of reality, on this ground, in this time, not that Hun has any contacts there as far as Leo's aware.

It's a daily, painful dig in Leo's mind, soul and body, and it's wearing on all of the the same way.

They go up to the surface nightly, now, a patrol that Leo knows does more for their spirits, to keep them busy, more than anything else. They have no real leads, the children and thugs they beat up have nothing to do with Raphael. It's winter now, snow falling heavily, and most of the random street crime is in hibernation as well.

Leonardo supposes it's a good thing that they haven't grown stagnant, though it is a daily test of his self control, not to take his frustrations out on the few petty criminals they find, knowing when to pull back, when to show mercy. It used to be an easy thing.

"So he just _randomly_ wandered into the city, grabbed Raph and wandered out, for no reason?" Donatello says, suddenly, into the silence, picking up the conversation they've had going for months now.

"Who cares about the reason," Mikey says – he's huddled on the edge of the building, looking down at the empty, snow covered streets. He's started to grow irritable. As the youngest he has the luxury of lashing out by looking for someone else to blame, someone else to hold accountable, but it doesn't seem to provide him with any particular relief.

"If we find the reason, we'll know where to look," Leo says.

"More like we'll find the reason _after_ we figure out where to look," Mikey says, throwing a small rock down into the street petulantly. "When we find his body."

Mikey says partly to be cruel, to make someone else hurt the way he's hurting. But mostly it's because he wants to hear the denial, that it won't come to that. But Leo's feeling cruel today, too, so he says nothing.

Neither of them react when Donnie's shell cell goes off, staring forward gloomily when he answers.

"Hello?"

"Guys! Guys," April's voice is nearly giddy, Leo lifts his head. He hasn't heard her that happy in a while. "You gotta get to my apartment. I have something you'll want to see. It has to do with Raph."

Leo doesn't even wait for Don to say his goodbyes, already off to the north side, to April's.

"It happened three weeks ago," April says, excitedly. "I only knew to look because a friend of mine – she works in insurance – was talking about something weird she saw in a case she's processing. A robbery." April pulls up the footage on her computer. It's a security tape, one of a small general stores on the outskirts of the city.

The same location as hardware store Hun raided five months ago, and Leo can feel his heart race when he realizes this.

"That's Hun," Mikey says, pointing at the screen as the gigantic figure moves around the edge of the frame. The camera is pointed at the register, which Hun has no interest in, gathering supplies in a rushed and sloppy manner, several bottles bouncing from the shelves, scattering on the ground.

"Three weeks ago," Leo says. But does this actually help? Is Raph even with Hun? Still, they know Hun is in the area, which means it's possible for them to find him, to pin him down and get some answers.

"This was in the news," Don says, looking sick. "But they just called it a robbery, no one was saying anything about . . . about monsters or creatures or anything."

"April only knew because of her friend," Leo says, putting a hand on Donnie's shoulder, but he still looks guilty, like he should've been combing through the footage of every single crime in the New York area.

"Really, don't beat yourself up," April says. "Case is doing enough of that for all of us. But – it gets better. After I found this, I started looking to see if any other stores were robbed that day, _and_ I managed to review some of those street light cameras in the area around the that time – well, look for yourself."

Leo leans down, and sees the obvious trail left behind. Another hardware store, some medical supplies, and a line of brief sightings leading straight back into the forest.

"That's the forest we found his tracker," Don says.

"We searched there, right?" April asks, frowning as she pulls up a detailed map of the area.

"Yeah, but we could've missed something!" Mikey says.

Or it could be nothing. Hun is smart. He could just be using this forest as his dumping ground, the place where he comes and goes from, before heading to his actual hiding place. Dumping the tracker there would make sense, keeping them locked on that location.

Or maybe . . . maybe they'll catch a break, and he's just gotten sloppy.

Mikey's eyes are bright, practically bouncing from foot to foot, waiting for Leo's order, and Leo half smiles, glad to finally be saying something that will actually give all three of them direction, even if it's just to cross this forest off their list for good.

"Let's go check it out."

xXx

"Man, dude, man, it is _cold_," Mikey breathes, rubbing his heavily bundled arms. "I hope Raph's somewhere warm."

It's actually what Leonardo's been thinking since the end of summer, but he nods.

"I don't want us to get too far away from each other," Leonardo says. Last time they split the forest and searched individually, but with the intense cold, and in the name of thoroughness, they're going at it together this time. "We'll meet up at that rock over there. Don't go any further than we agreed."

It's quite literally the worst possible time to do this.

It's in the middle of the day but the skies are dark with a winter storm, snow falling heavy and thick. But Leo's not going to wait another day and he sincerely doubts he could talk either of his brothers into it, either.

"Guys, I think I have something," Donnie says after about an hour of looking, his tone saying he _knows_ he has something, and Leo rushes over, the confidence in Donnie's voice getting Leo's hopes up before he can guard against it.

Don waits for both Mikey and Leo to reach him, then points to . . .

. . . A decomposing animal.

They stare down at the morbid sight, then back to Donatello. He rolls his eyes.

"Look at the bones. Clean breaks. This is the kind of wound you find from heavy impacts, like getting hit by a car, but I don't see any roads around here, do you?" Donnie says. "Something really heavy hit this coyote, _really_ hard."

"Hun," Leonardo says.

"And there's another one, over this direction," Donnie says, backtracking toward a ravine. As they head down into it, the foliage starts to clear out, the second body right on the outskirts of the trees, similarly mauled.

"Is that a third?" Leo asks, eyes narrowed into the distance. It's hard to tell, without the heavy trees, this area is open to the snowfall, and the body has been completely covered. Mikey jumps ahead, kicking the snow off.

"Yeah, it's another one. This is like the grossest trail of breadcrumbs ev – " Mikey glances to the side, stumbling back. "Holy crap, dudes!"

They literally had to be standing directly in front the cave to see it, the wall of the incline in front blocking it from view from any other angle. This is the area Mikey searched, and as Leo looks around he realizes they're lucky that Mikey simply missed it and didn't fall in himself from above. It's so well hidden it's almost an optical illusion. Leo would've found it, though, and likely Donnie, too. The thought seems to occur to Mikey at the same time, his grin draining rapidly as they move into the cave, finally getting a relief from the heavy snowfall.

"Think we found Hun," Donnie says.

The sudden wall of wood is out of place against the wet, rock walls. Leo presses his hand against it and can feel warmth on the other side, even through his gloves. He imagines his brother trapped in there, so close, and has a surge of sudden, almost feral anger.

Donnie and Mikey have their weapons ready, waiting for Leo's call. But he takes a step back.

"Not yet," Leo says, though it's infuriating to say.

They came out here to search, they're not ready for a fight. Taking on Hun will need all of them in full power. Maybe with Casey as back up. Not three shivering turtles in limiting snowsuits. He's not going to lose another brother while trying to rescue this one.

"What's wrong with you, dude?" Mikey says, the good-natured brother he'd sorely been missing vanishing once again. "He's right here! Let's get him! You want to wait until tomorrow? He could be _dead_ tomorrow!"

Leo tugs Mikey away from the room, toward the entrance. "You better hope you didn't give away one of the only advantages we have. If Hun knows we're coming – "

"What, you're scared? Don't you think Raph is scared?"

Leo almost snarls, staring into Mikey's narrowed eyes, petulant face, one that's _daring_ Leo to do something about it, and Leo wants to, he wants to shove Mikey into the wall, wants to –

He stops and takes a step back, feeling a sudden chill that has nothing to do with the snow. He wanted to overpower his brother, force him to be quiet, to listen, and Leo swallows at the implications of that, unsettled.

"Pheromones," Donnie says from behind them. He's still staring at the wall. "Can't you smell it? It's . . . wafting."

"We were standing here less than five minutes," Leo says, deeply unnerved at how much it had clouded his mind, so quickly.

"It must be part of Hun's mutation," Donnie says, opens his mouth to say something else, then thinks better of it. "I think . . . we have the reason why he took Raph."

xXx

Eventually Hun does run out of food. He withstands the hunger as long as possible, out of simple laziness, then unwinds himself from his mate's body, touches each egg gently, and heads out into the unpleasant cold. A storm has just passed, the ground thick with snow, and Hun narrows his eyes at the front of his cave. An animal had been toying with the carcass of the coyote, no doubt desperate for food. The trail is distorted by the snow, and Hun considers the direction it came from briefly . . . but hunger is more pressing. That first.

This will require going into the city once again, as fresh meat can only last for so long. He needs cans, dried meats, non-perishable items. Thankfully there doesn't seem to be a limit on his or his mate's diets. It's at this point that Hun has his first conscious thought about his young as beings, beings that will need to eat. Hopefully they will wait until spring to appear. Even so, he gets softer foods, unsure of what either an infant human, or infant turtle, can eat.

The forest is dead and frozen, and the smell of his mate is one of the only scents left, greeting him quickly.

But Raphael smells . . . different.

Hun pauses a good distance away from the cave entrance. The smell is stronger, more than doubled. It is new, and the newness excites him. No longer in heat, and Hun smiles, anticipating a hard, thorough fucking as he explores this new scent, mmm, he wants to lick it from Raphael's skin.

He enters the cave, and even in the dark, immediately sees the chains, laying limp and empty on the floor.

That was not Raphael's scent.

The realization comes just as the blade meets his neck. He does not fear the sharp edge of Leonardo's sword, but he stills, trying to calm himself from his rage.

_Where are his eggs?_ They took them. Raphael's brothers came and took his mate, and his eggs. Would they break them? No, they're too honor driven – unless they see the eggs as a dishonor, the embodiment of Raphael's capture. The possibility seems more and more likely, and the anger grows. The teasing, tantalizing scent of the turtle, Leonardo, behind him hardly helps the situation. So like Raphael, but new, fresh. Enticing. Still, he wants Raphael here to fuck, and the sheer inconvenience of having to deal with his brothers first is filling him with surprising rage. He wants his _mate_.

"You took my eggs."

"You took my brother," Leonardo snarls, the smell spiking in his aggression. Mmm. Perhaps . . . this one, too? Perhaps . . . all four.

He imagines the sweet smell of his cave with all four of them, bound and captured, in heat, baring his young . . . such thorough domination of his enemies surely would've appealed, or at least amused, his human self. He remembers Raphael's reluctant churrs as he was mated, that first time he heard the sound from him, and has to refrain from dropping, right there, imagining such a performance from all four of the brothers.

Laughing at his own greed, Hun grabs the sword at his neck by the blade.

It is sharp enough to cut into his palm, but Hun ignores the pain, squeezing hard and fast, yanking Leonardo off balance.

He tosses Leonardo against the wall, which cracks under the weight. Hun snarls, already annoyed at having to repair it. He grabs the small turtle by the neck and, in a particularly cruel moment, smirks. He slams Leonardo against the side of the kerosene heater. The turtle yells out in pain as the flesh of his arm burns, and when Hun gets tired of the smell, tosses him out into the cave. A fight in close quarters will only help the small turtle, anyway.

There – he's distracted briefly by the real, distinct smell of his mate. They did not take him far, then. Good. This will be over quickly.

But even wounded, Leonardo is fast, and clever, and knows where to hit. Hun is still slow and off balance from his semi-hibernation, and it is only thanks to his thick skin that Leonardo doesn't immediately take him down. Ultimately it comes down to a difference in sheer strength, and when Hun surges forward, collapsing on top of the turtle, there is little he can do about it, other than cry out in pain as Hun jams his hand down cruelly on the still hot flesh of his arm.

He drops the swords on the ground where the turtle was defeated, and locks Leonardo's wrist in one of the chains that held Raphael.

Then he waits for the rest to appear.

xXx

The pheromones are dizzying.

Hun is putting out powerful, powerful stuff, the kind that expects Leo to lay down and take it, be ready to be mated, and Leo can feel a previously unknown part of himself responding to the scent, coded so perfectly for his own mind.

Raphael's pheromones still linger as well, and are not nearly as strong, but it pierces through all Leo's defenses, because it's his brother, his brother who he does love, deeply, one that he missed like a physical ache, and one that needs Leo – the scent saying that he's a willing mate ready to be mounted.

Leonardo tugs wildly at the restraint, enraged with himself for being captured, enraged that his anger is so hard to contain because of the thick scent in the air.

It's a confusing mix, one Leonardo can overcome, but day after day after day . . . six months . . .

_"Raph? Are you with me? Raphie?"_

All Leo had wanted to do was touch his brother, see him breathing, alive, but immediately that isn't good enough. Immediately Raphael has to be safe, at home, he has to be unscarred and whole, and it is becoming apparent that's far from reality. Raph is delirious, deep in hibernation, left in the position Hun used him last. His legs spread. Leaking. Hun's scent all over him.

Leonardo quickly shifts Raph's position, and sees the damage done to his legs, and just how much the six months had done to Raph's strong body, and he wants to rip the world apart, wants to scream and wail like a child. Raphael is broken. He's been broken.

"Raph, answer me," Leo says. All he needs is to hear Raph's voice, but knows that won't be enough, either. "It's Leo, can you hear me?"

Raph doesn't say anything, but breathes out once, heavily, like a short sob. Attempting to stay unconscious.

Leo stops trying to wake him. "We're gonna have to carry him."

"There's – babies – he – "

"What?"

"He laid eggs," Mikey says.

Don blinks.

"Over – over here" Mikey continues needlessly. Don walks over, and Leo only follows once he sees Donnie bend, running his hand over something pale and smooth. There are three eggs.

Leo stands in stunned silence, watching Donnie inspect the things.

"Are they fertilized?" Leo finds himself asking.

Donnie pulls back, hands on his knees. Then he nods, once. "They're almost ready to hatch."

"Okay. Lets . . . " Donnie and Mikey are both staring with wide open, childlike expressions, as though they expect the next words out of Leo's mouth to make everything better. "Let's go home."

Donnie picks the locks holding Raphael's neck, but as soon as the metal clicks free, opening, they all freeze. Hearing the slow, lazy approach of someone incredibly large.

Donnie and Mikey know to take Raphael to a safe place first before anything else, get Raphael home before returning and helping Leo –

But, actually, they don't.

"Hey Gruesome!" Mikey yells it, and Donnie comes in from above, not holding anything back – a hit like that would've split the skull a normal man, but against Hun, it just cracks Donnie's bo. Donnie's grabbed by one large hand, knocking Mikey over as they're swung out into the cave. Leo is frantic to follow, having to force himself to catch his breath and calm himself, focusing on the metal around his wrist, the intense pheromones even making this simple task difficult.

By the time he gets it undone, Hun is returning, dragging Mikey and Donnie by their legs behind him, Raph over his shoulder.

Leo keeps his hand up, hoping Hun is cocky enough not to check that the lock is still in place.

He is. Hun drags Donnie and Mikey to the spare chains, the heavy metal going around Mikey's neck and Donnie's wrist. This is good – Donnie is good with locks, and is already inconspicuously feeling around for any weaknesses. There's no way for Mikey to get his own off with both hands in view, and Leo shifts, starting to work on it for him.

"Pathetic, the lot of you," Hun laughs darkly, stepping back to enjoy the picture. "But keep fighting, I forgot how exciting it is to have an unwilling partner. You see this?" Hun yanks Raphael's legs apart lewdly, then spreads his fingers to show how Raphael's skin parts, revealing a hole to his brothers. Donatello's breath catches, and Hun laughs. "It didn't exist before I started fucking your brother – it's mine. He's mine. He loves it. And," Hun says. "You'll get one just like it. Each of you. You'll love it, too."

Raph moans in pain, the way one might if having a bad dream. Hun smiles, drops Raph's leg, and stands.

Mikey's restraint finally clicks softly in Leo's fingers, unlocked. He glances over at Donnie's hand, which has been free for some time.

"Now, where are my eggs?" Hun says. He has one of Leo's swords, and he grabs Raphael's head harshly, yanking it back. Raph doesn't even tense at the rough handling, utterly limp. His eyes are open, but half lidded, blank and unseeing. "I'll slit his throat and leave him to bleed like a pig. Answer me."

"They're out there," Leo says, gesturing with his free hand. "Buried under the pile of rocks."

Leonardo actually has no idea where his brothers set the eggs, but all he needs is one second – the second when Hun loosens his grip on the sword, looking toward the door.

They move as one, Leonardo surges up from the chain, grabbing the edge of that metal heater tipping it over while Mikey and Don grab Raph, yanking him out of Hun's grip.

Hun hollers in surprise and rage, but Leo is already tumbling out of the makeshift room. "_Go_," Leo roars at his brothers, hoping to sound angry enough that they'll actually cooperate this time.

The gasoline handle is still sitting in the pile of stolen supplies, and Leonardo grabs it, whipping around. Hun is in a rage, stomping out the small fire that's already started to spread along the padding of his small home.

There's a moment, right before Leonardo throws the gasoline, standing out in the cave, looking back in at what Hun had made of, the room he built – it's nothing but raw materials, not painted, some pieces of wood still have the worn logo sticker still stuck on. It's made for function, the sides meet seamlessly, and the extra wood hangs along the edge, untrimmed. But it is sanded. Along the insides, along the floor, and the doorway, all sanded down to a smooth finish. That alone must have taken hours, and Leonardo thinks of those hours, and he thinks of the muscles behind Hun's arms that made it possible, the end result of training and patience, decades and decades of dedication, of constant, strict commitment. Early morning study, constant, unrelenting self improvement. At the moment, Hun looks ridiculous as he tries to stamp out the fire, and he pauses, seeing Leonardo's eyes on him. They stare for just a moment before Leonardo throws gasoline, barely rolling free of the blaze in time.

He watches it burn, the fire arching wildly along the roof of the cave to reach the open air. The smell of the pheromones spikes wildly as the wood burns, the last mark Hun will leave on this earth, washing over Leo and into the forest.

Leo slowly stands on wobbling legs, but by the time he's made his way out of the forest, his head has cleared. The Battle Shell is waiting, Mikey and Donnie sitting the back, Raph laid out on the bench. Raph is still not there, Leo can tell immediately, and after being exposed, however brief, knows the kind of fog that separates Raphael from his brothers. Powerful, thick, confusing. He holds his brother's face, looking into his brother's eyes. Usually so sharp they hurt to look at, feral and wild. The pupils are fat and round, but unseeing.

Leo will wait as long as it takes for Raph's own head to clear, for his eyes to sharpen back into focus.

Donnie starts wrapping Leo's arm, and Mikey climbs to the drivers seat, the engine turning over. Yesterday was one of the worst storms Leo's ever seen, and the roads are heavy with ice and snow, unwelcoming and even dangerous. It'll be slow going, but they'll get home eventually.


	3. Chapter 3 - Epilogue

~

"You're recovering at a remarkable pace," Donnie says.

"It's what I do," Raph says, grimacing. His body is shaking from effort and hurt as he lifts his leg, taking about thirty pounds with it – small potatoes, Donnie would breeze through this work out, but Donnie's knee, calf and all around muscular system hasn't been wrecked beyond belief. Donnie shakes his head, bewildered, rearranging the schedule, moving one of the final check ups on Raph's knee to the end of the week, rather than the end of the month, as he'd originally anticipated.

"With how far ahead you are with the physical, do you think you might want to take a break for a few days? Talk about things?"

"What are you on about, Don?" There's no defensiveness in his tone, honestly confused, unassuming.

"Just," Donnie says. "Anything you have on your mind."

"Alright. I'll let you know," Raph says, closing his eyes in effort as he lifts his other leg.

He's not thinking about it.

Donnie . . . doesn't want to be the one to remind him.

These sort of blackouts in Raph's memory were random and sporadic at the beginning, just occasional moments of confusion. Then happening more and more until they basically became the standard.

The past becoming a void, an empty nothing, simply not spoken about. And it is worrying. But Donnie was, and is, so relieved to have his brother back to something like normal, it's better than he dared to hope, he has a hard time complaining.

At the beginning he'd been so desperate to get Raph _moving_, stretching long-neglected, atrophied muscles, that he didn't want to question anything that helped, even if it was obvious Raph was shoving his issues into every corner and crevasse of his mind, like Mikey when he's told he has to actually clean up his room.

Raph dove into to the pain of rebuilding his body, embracing the mindless, grueling challenge, the escape. And it worked, Raph is mobile, at least with Donnie's specialized knee brace. Even without that he can still get around, limping, too proud for a cane. It's only upward and onward from here, hundreds of miles better than Donnie ever thought they would reach - Thankfully all of the soft tissue in Raph's knee was salvageable, and while there's still some bumps in the working, moving bits, they all have adequate cushioning from each other –

Donnie frowns, disappointed in himself, avoiding the subject even in his own head. But Raph is doing so well . . .

"Think I'll add another five pounds tomorrow," Raph pants out, laying limp, head back as he catches his breath.

"You're a machine, Raph."

~

Splinter died three years ago, and Raph remembered thinking, with childish simplicity, that their family wasn't five anymore. They were four.

One less. One of them was left behind, one was lost, for good, and couldn't be found. It was a failure, a reminder that they'd always be incomplete. Raph carried that pain in particular, that his family was one less.

"They were nonviable," Leo says. "Donnie says it they weren't properly fertilized."

Those things, the eggs, they don't count. They never existed, never should've existed. They were wrong.

One less. One less. One less.

"Are you okay with that?" Leo asks, slowly. "Last time we talked about this, you were . . . pretty conflicted."

Last time . . . ? Raph can't remember talking about this before, not with anyone, doesn't know how he'd begin to vocalize the shame, the loss, the attachment that the eggs represent. He opens his mouth to speak, finds himself choking on the words. Leo's beside him, hand on his shoulder, clinging hard. The words come a little easier with Leo there, Leonardo's steady presence. The painful, overwhelming, strangling heat of his feelings fade.

"I donno," Raph says. "Whatever."

he doesn't have to think of the alternative, then he won't. But he guesses that _does_ mean he's relieved, that he's happy about it. But he also feels like he might start puking and never stop, so there's that.

~

"If you had a kid, what you wanna name him?"

"Real fucking funny, Mike," Raph's hands are suddenly clenched hard on the controller, his good mood frozen under the sudden chill.

"Do you think you'd keep up the painter theme Splinter had going? I guess you'd have to know some for that, though, haa. Hey, you could name him Banksy!"

"Shut your trap," Raph snarls, but the panic is rising. Mikey's joking like this is no big deal,and it's gonna knock the cards out of Raph's hands, splaying out onto the table for everyone to see.

"Do you think your kid would be like, a brat?" Mikey asks, "Throw a lot of tantrums? Remember when we were kids and we had to sleep in different rooms for the first time and we all cried? Do you think it would've been like that?"

"Mikey, what the _fuck_," Raph asks, the controller hanging limp in his hand, but Mikey still has his eyes on the game, more focused that Raph's ever seen on anything, short of a fight where one of their lives is on the line.

"Do you think you'd, like, teach him ninjitsu?" Mikey asks. "The sais? Or a different weapon? Ha, what if he ended up liking the katanas – "

Raphael ignores the pain in both legs, stands up, and kicks the system as hard as he can, the plastic bouncing across the stone floor of their home, slamming into the wall and the controller whipping out of Mikey's hand, trailing behind.

"You wanna explain yourself?" Raph doesn't even recognize his voice, it's something dark and deadly, something you never use on a brother.

Mikey doesn't look scared, though. He looks sad.

"If . . . you had a kid, you'd want to know, right?"

~

There's no immediate hurt on Raphael's body when they finally make it home from taking down Hun, so Mikey and Leo take Raph to lay down, and Donnie goes to the lab with his eggs. He's done analyzing them within the hour, and calls Leo in to see the results, Mikey trailing behind.

"As you can see, it's nonviable," Donnie says, unnecessarily, gesturing toward the image on the screen. The mess inside the egg is obvious immediately; globs of something half formed, unfinished, _wrongwrongwrong_, and when it shifts inside the egg, apparently alive enough to _move_, Mikey feels numb, nauseating terror.

"Is it alive?"

"Not in any meaningful way," Donnie says. "It's a tumor. A cluster - there's no spinal cord, no brain stem. It's just . . . biomatter."

"All three of them?"

Donnie pauses for a long moment, then shakes his head no.

"_What?_"

"One is a baby?"

"One is . . . yes. A baby." It's about the weirdest tone Donnie's ever used, but when he pulls up the image, it makes sense.

"That's a human," Leo says.

"Both Hun and Raph were partly comprised of ordinary, human genetics," Donnie says. "It was a one in a trillion chance, but . . . as far as I can tell, it happened."

Mikey's seen enough daytime soap operas to know when he's looking at an ultrasound of human infant, and he isn't sure why this is worse than the bio-matter clods. Maybe it's because they could wipe their hands clean of that – no muss, no fuss. Bag it, toss it, forget about it. This one is more complicated, it needs an actual answer.

He looks to Leo, who is covering his mouth, staring at the image on the screen, absorbing it, slowly.

"It's human-_like_," Leo says slowly. "Or it's human?"

"Without in-depth DNA sequencing I can't be entirely certain," Donnie says. "But it's close enough that I'd need some pretty fancy equipment to be able to tell the difference. From what I can tell . . . AB blood, four chamber heart. Male. I think it's – he's Caucasian – from Hun – and east Asian from Raph. If. That is, if the markers are correct. Brown eyes, black hair. Monoamine oxidase enzyme, the 'thrill seeking' enzyme. Big surprise there. If I couldn't see the egg around him, I would never guess it was anything but a normal human."

"Is he ready to hatch?" Mikey asks.

"Yes," Donnie says. "In the next week, ideally, going by the size. We'll probably need to puncture the shell ourselves, considering."

Mikey looks at the egg, then back to the picture on the screen. The little guy shifts in the egg, and the egg wobbles just a little on the table.

"I, uh, I don't think mutated Hun was all that similar to our genetics, honestly," Donnie starts rambling, nervously, into the silence. "He was a new off-branch of the mutation, so. I guess this result isn't too surprising. The only thing that's actually compatible between them."

"I need to think about this," Leo says abruptly, and turns to meditate.

"Man. Poor Raph," Mikey says.

Leo stops in the door. "Don't say anything to him until I get back, alright?"

"Raph's not even awake, bro," Mikey mutters, not liking Leo's tone, or the implication that Mikey would just go bouncing on his brother's bed the second he got the chance. But no, Leo's tone wasn't accusing. It more defensive . . .

"You're not gonna tell him," Mikey says it as he figures it out. "You wanna keep this a secret from him?"

"He hasn't even been home an hour," Leo says, he's avoiding eye contact. Probably wishing Mikey hadn't been in the room, so he wouldn't know, either. "I just need to think about this."

"Think of a reason to keep it a secret," Mikey says. "Raph'll go ballistic when he finds out, bro!"

"Normally, Raph would go ballistic. _Normally_ he would. But he's not normal right now, Mikey," Leo says. Then his face suddenly goes soft and pained. "Can't . . . can't you feel him?"

" . . . I mean," Mikey shrugs uncomfortably. Leo goes down deep, Mikey just skims the surface. Mikey could, if he wanted to, it's harder for Donnie and Raph, but Mikey's . . . always had the potential. Just scared to take the plunge, and now of all times it seems especially terrifying, finding out what's been left of Raph's head.

He can feel it, though. A steady, pulsing pain, like a heartache, like a really nasty bruise.

"Just let me think about it, alright? We can talk about it, I just . . . I need to just . . . " Leo says, like a toy that's slowly running out of batteries, and heading off, presumably, to think about it.

"What do you think?" Mikey asks Donnie, who's just been staring at the eggs on the table, a row of three, and Mikey has a sudden flash of Donnie as a magician, in _one_ of these eggs is something that's gonna rip this family apart! Take your guess!

"I don't think there's any right answer," Donnie says.

"You agree with Leo," Mikey translates, eyes narrowed.

"As far as I can tell you're the only one with your mind made up, Mike."

"You two have already decided," Mikey says. "You're just trying to come up with words to make it easier to swallow."

~

"So where – where is he?" Raph asks, his movements are too stiff for pacing, he's stuck sitting, hands on either side of his head like he can't contain the rage building in there.

"SoHo," Donnie says. "I have his information here, the address and – "

"Get out," Raph snarls, darkly.

"It was the best decision to make," Leo says, moving forward and Raph ducks out of his reach violently. "You would've done the same – "

"_**GET. OUT!**_" Raph roars, not even looking at the two of them, and they leave the lab, one after another.

Raph sits there, shaking like an invalid, before he finally forces his stiff muscles up, walking over to the folder Donnie had gestured toward on his computer.

Fucking pictures. He sees a glimpse of dark hair and looks away, dropping into Donnie's chair, face in his hands, too terrified to look beyond that. Feels sick. Can't even look at the kid's face.

He doesn't know what he would've done if Leo hadn't decided for him. That thought scares him, too. In a way it's easier to just be mad at Leo. It's all Leo left him. That and a file of data and pictures Raph's too much of a coward to look at.

When he was normal, and life wasn't periods between feeling like shit and feeling like shivering, weak shit, he would yell with his whole body, he would stomp and kick and whatever. Now he hates getting in a fight with Leo standing. He has to sit, and it enrages him that Leo could get up and leave at any time, that he's doing Raph a courtesy by sitting on the opposite side of the kitchen table, listening to Raph's impotent raging.

"You didn't give me a chance!" Raph says. "It my decision, Leo! _Mine_!"

"Raph," Leo half laughs, at a loss for words. "You didn't see yourself. You weren't even . . . You were zoning out in the middle of conversations. You weren't sleeping on your own. You were constantly – you were scared, you'd forget where you were. How could you expect us to put that on you?"

That –

Raph doesn't think about it, much, the first few months of making it back home. It's a blur, a curtain drawn tight over his memories. But at Leo's words the curtains are blown open, and . . .

With Hun. When he was with Hun. Raphael would wake up to the sound of his own moaning, Hun's body over him, around him, _inside him_. Then Hun would finish and Raph would fall asleep and he'd wake up and Hun would be reaching for him, dragging him close, yanking one of Raph's legs out of the way and fucking him, again, and again, large hands coming out from the dark, playing Raph's body and he couldn't stop it, not ever, couldn't do a single thing, if Hun wanted him to hurt, then he hurt, if he wanted Raph to come, he came, when Hun wanted, whenever, Raph couldn't stop it.

When did he stop anticipating Hun? Stop expecting his presence to return, somehow, because the thing that crushed him so thoroughly couldn't just _disappear_. Even – even some- sometimes missing. Hun. When did. He stop needing his brothers there? At night? To hold Hun off, the memory of Hun, the memory of that room, the room that taught him abject helplessness, taught him just how powerless, how meaningless . . .

Leo is still talking. "Raph? Hey – _Raph?_"

Raph stands up and walks away. It's late, and he's exhausted.

He's in his room, his own room, but the lessons are there with him, because he never did get rid of them – just pushed them down deep and they're bobbing back up, like they never left.

He's still angry, he hasn't forgotten a thing, but the weight is so intense, and he's terrified, down the bone, he's just relieved when Leo appears in his doorway and climbs in to bed, wrapping tight around Raph.

~

A dazed silence settles over the brothers as they drive from the forest, back into the city, back home. Mikey's behind the wheel, and Donnie tends to the wound on Leo's arm, wrapping the burn that's still oddly numb.

Across from them, Raph is laid out on the bench, apparently unconscious.

"Has he said anything?" Leo asks.

"No," Donnie shakes his head, looking worried. "His whole knee is going to have to be reconstructed, Leo. It's so wrecked, it can't even bend. And I don't know what Hun did to his calf, it's a mess. And he was stationary for so long, he's going to need physical therapy . . . I don't know how that's going to work when I'm trying to rebuild his legs."

Leo nods as Donnie continues the laundry list of injuries, knowing if this was the worst of it, Donnie wouldn't have that pale, terrified look. The worst of it is something beyond the physical. Donnie climbs up to the front to check for any injuries Mikey might have missed, and Leo kneels beside the bench, looking at his brother's face.

"Raph?" Leo asks softly. He closes his eyes, pressing his forehead to his brother's, relief flooding him at his brother's skin, his warmth, his presence. "Raphael, we got you. You're safe." Raphael says nothing, though Leo honestly didn't expect a response. He just had to say it. For the room at large. For the universe at large. Leo tells himself that the biggest hurdle is over. Raphael is here. He's back with his family. He can take as long as he needs to open his eyes again, because Leo's going to make sure nothing will ever hurt him like that, ever again. Ever.

They make it home, and as Leo takes Raph to his own bed, Donnie and Mikey call April to tell her the good news. No visitors yet, please.

He lays Raphael out on the futon, and contemplates his brother – the connection between him and Raph that's been driving Leonardo mad for the past year is eerily silent. No pain, but the complete void left behind is unnerving, something he'd expect from . . . if they hadn't been quick enough to save Raph.

In a moment of panic, Leo grabs his Raph's hands, clinging hard. He doesn't really know what to expect, Raphael has never been one for this sort of connection, even while awake. But Leo pours all of his energy into it, imagining it traveling up Raph's arm, into his mind, helping him heal, or at least guiding him back to a place where he could start.

"Please," Leo doesn't realize he's been murmuring it out loud until his voice is shaking with tears, and he stops. God, he was – they were too late. His brother was hurt in the worst possible way, and he was so close, this whole time, _within reach_, and suffering hour by hour. Leo's vision is stinging as he does his best to suppress his sob. He presses Raph's limp hand to his mouth, cradling it between both of his.

He wants to climb in bed with his brother, like they did as children, but can only imagine the terror that could inspire, a body so close next to his own, without his knowledge.

"Leo?" It's Donnie, sliding into the room. Leo forcibly swallows down the sudden swell of emotion, and the act physically hurts. "I just finished looking at the eggs. You might want to join me in the lab for this."

"Oh," Leo says, clears his throat, staring down at Raph's face. He's safe. Even if he wakes up, he's safe.

By the time he makes it back to the room, Leo feels like he's aged about thirty years. He drops down in the chair beside the bed, staring down at Raph's body, looking hard, as if that will somehow provide some sort of . . . clue, some sort of road map, to what they should do.

He's not sure when he falls asleep, but his wake up is violent and startlilng.

_Leo . . . _

Leo jumps to his feet, scrambling wildly – Raph. He dreamed they saved Raph, but here's this feeling, this awful feeling of despair, this is the awful, waking reality of not knowing –

He stares blankly at the figure on the bed. Raphael. Who has his eyes open, blinking up at him.

"Leo?"

"Raph!" Leo says, wiping at his face. He'd been crying in his sleep. "Hey, Raph."

"You . . . " Raph seems confused, looking around the room. "You left."

"No, I was here – " Leo gestures at the chair, as if hoping for it to corroborate his story.

"I meant," Raph scrunches his face, like he's not entirely sure what he meant. He grabs Leo's hand, holding it loosely, shaking it a little, as if trying to make it work like it did before.

Leo stares down, mouth working in surprise. Then he climbs onto the bed, bringing Raphael's hand to his forehead. Trying to start that connection, once again, pouring everything he has into it, visualizing the bridge between them, pulling them closer together.

It comes like a tidal wave, so shocking that Leo actually pulls Raph tight up against him as he braces against it.

Leo can feel it, everything Raph's _not_ feeling, pushing to the outside of his mind to crash around recklessly, all the pain, and the burning, _burning_ humiliation. The hate. The failure. The intensity of it makes him shake, but he can see past it all, where his brother is stuck, a tiny flicker of light, cocooned away in his safe bubble, his nothing, his denial. The thing that kept him sane. The bubble will have to be popped, and Raphael will have to find his way through the barrage of pain, until he can make it free onto the other side.

"Don't – leave again," Raph asks, voice shaking. Pleading.

"I won't," Leo says.

"Th-thought I was gonna die out there, just a – used up – " the humiliation, the powerlessness, flares madly, burning the both of them, and Leo helps temper it back, containing it, as much as he can. His brother's quivering calms, slightly, loosening in Leo's arms.

"You're never going back there," Leo promises, closing his eyes tight as he shields his brother from that fear, pushing it further and further away.

Then . . . he feels something else. It's the warmth, and the comfort, and the trust Raph has in him, and the sudden relief, the sudden safety of being home . . . combined with what Hun did to Raph's body. Leonardo blanks out his mind as much as he can, makes it through the night.

~

"He's back in heat." Leo's got his hands clasped in front of his mouth. He looks drained, and with his mask off, younger than Mikey's used to seeing.

"What happened?" Mikey asks. "Do you think it was finding out about . . . his kid?"

"I'm not sure. He was so bad last night. I don't think he slept at all, just." Leo frowns deeply. "Just shaking. He's never been that bad before."

"I thought he was getting better," Mikey says.

"People heal in cycles," Donnie says. "It may feel like backtracking, but in my opinion, this is good. I mean," Donnie shakes his head. "It was pretty obvious he recovered unnaturally fast. He's going to have to work through some things. Not just shove them away."

"Yeah," Leo says, sounding a little out of it. "It's just hard. With him in heat."

Mikey didn't actually need Leo to tell him that Raph was in heat again, the fact itself woke him up this morning, while it was still dark, confused and tired but _wanting . . . _

For years, when Mikey thought of sex, he thought _Baywatch_, he thought about sitcom audiences going "_oooooh!_" at a particularly risque joke. Something funny, something intriguing, the happy ending, fade to black moment. Nothing really to do with Mikey, not really. About as relevant as a homecoming week, or office parties, or nosy in-laws. Concepts he's most familiar with through the television, usually ending up cartoonish and ridiculous.

Until one night, when he opened the wrong door and found April and Casey, laughing under the covers. Giggling and then moaning. _That_ was real, _that_ was . . . intimate and touchable and easy. It was something Mikey could do. If someone ever wanted to do it with him.

Then this, with Raph.

This is something _hot_, that lives in his gut, something that makes him want to laugh hard, run as fast as he can, tumble and wrestle, reckless, _restless_. And he wants to do it with Raph, his brother. He – he wants to do other, crashing, reckless, rough, wet, _now_, hard . . . things. With Raph . Stuff that makes him all flushed and panting to think about, flesh meeting flesh, rubbing, challenging.

Mikey knows how to get Raph running in circles in the dojo, and he wants that, he wants Raph breathless and panting, too, and then they'd . . . just . . . It'd be easy. With Raph. Everything about Raph's scent is an invitation, like it's just for Mikey.

Mikey's eyes close and he sways in the shower, hand on his dick. He's sure Leo would be disappointed if he knew, but Mikey's never had Leo's self control, and with this scent in the air, in Mikey's head, in his _blood_, he's gotta do something. He'll go crazy.

The worst part isn't the urges or the fire in his blood or anything else physical. It sucks, but Mikey can jerk off and call it a day, and jerk off again if he needs it, no biggie, and jerk off, again, whatever, he'll just sleep in late.

It's . . . that laughter. Under the sheets. All this stuff with Raph keeps bringing it to mind, and how it's . . . probably never gonna change. Alone, he feels alone.

The door opens to the bathroom, letting the heat out, and Mikey pokes his head out, "Hey, dude! Occupied!"

"Sorry," Donnie says, but he doesn't actually sound it.

"Don?" Mikey asks, releasing his hardness and willing it back inside but he's never quite mastered that trick. "You alright?"

He's flushed, looking around the corners of the bathroom and Mikey follows his gaze, almost expecting to find a bug or something scurrying around. "I'm fine."

They're naked like, all the time basically, whatever. But when Donnie lifts his gaze and makes eye contact, Mikey feels like there's no curtain between them, like Donnie can see all of him, his ridiculous self, hand on his still hard dick.

"I could smell you," Donnie says, simply.

Mikey blinks at him, and swallows. Arousal so strong it makes his knees wobble blindsides him. "S-sorry."

Donnie shakes his head. "I just . . . I think about it sometimes. Even without," he gestures vaguely toward the lair. "But now it feels like if I don't get it, if I never have it, I'm going to go crazy. And this is the worst time to say something about it, but I'm never going to say it otherwise," Donnie says, voice deep and calm. He nods, as though reviewing what he just said, and agreeing with it. "I just thought you should know."

Mikey's mouth works silently. He never considered. Never, not ever, but if he did, if he would've known it would be okay – he _would've_.

"Get in here, Donnie," he says, pulling the curtain back, giddy at the way Donnie's eyes immediately zero in on Mikey's hardness. He wants to laugh, and then remembers, he can, that he _has that_, now? Laughs under the covers, in the shower, in the lab. Neither of them really know how to kiss, but they figure it out.

~

It's so hard when Raph is in heat. So, so hard. Leo wants to pull back from Raph's mind but at this point he's basically been hardwired into it, part of Raph's coping mechanisms, helping him sort through the hurt, tame it, cut it down to manageable bites.

He can't really do that with something that affects _him_ just as much. They both lay there, panting, wanting. God, Raph wants it so bad, every part of him, it's in the dangerous slit of his eye as he watches Leo, gaze knowing.

Leo knows what he wants, he can hear it playing out in Raph's head, how part of him enjoyed how it felt to be under Hun, and how much more . . . he would enjoy it . . . with Leo.

It feels like a dream when he finally caves in some early morning, sliding over, pressing himself against Raph's side. Raph's response is something instinctive, spreading his legs, welcoming Leo there. Raph's eyes close and his mouth opens and Leo watches, about an inch from his face. He's so hard but he only uses his finger, not – not going to risk that again. Still, Raph loves it. He churrs, his mind spiraling madly, remembering the things Hun would say, about how Raph's would carry his young, and he imagines it in Leo's voice. He groans wildly, spreading his legs wider, riding Leo's hand. He feels safe, and satisfied, carding through traits that make Leo better, Leo more desirable than Hun, his righteous, and responsiblilty, and _virile_, and protective and strong, Leo's hands, the strength in those hands against Raph's legs. Raph is churring madly, lifting his hips for – for his mate. He can carry Leo's young, Leo is the perfect – perfect mate.

The Raph comes, and the thoughts blink out like they're unplugged, Raph dropping against the mattress, still, clenching a little sadly when Leo pulls his finger free.

Smirking, like he finds it hilarious, Raph reaches over and strokes Leo until he drops, and then until he's churring, and coming, too.

~

The eggs were like leather when Donnie first found them, but now the remaining egg's shell is softer, moist, almost tacky to the touch. He braces himself and slices a long, shallow cut down the surprisingly thin surface. Immediately fluid begins spilling out, and he sees pink, tender skin.

Donnie blinks in surprise at the – not quite umbilical cord, attached to the shell and the infant's side, rather than stomach. "Well that's something new," he says to the infant, whose arm is moving out in grasping, confused motions, feeling the air for the first time.

The subsequent cries of distress and confusion are a relief, strong and full.

"Wow, listen to that," Donnie murmurs as he cleans up the infant, wiping down the impossibly tiny limbs. "Nice set of lungs. Just like your – just like your dad, huh?"

Donnie keeps talking as he bundles the infant, hoping the sound of his voice over the past week is familiar enough . . . but no, through the egg and all that fluid, all sound would've been wildly distorted. It's a nice idea, though.

The baby cries, face flushing red, eyes starting to peek open.

Yellow eyes.

It stops Donnie short, staring in shock, until he realizes he's wrong. Just pale, pale brown. "Handsome little guy. Must have got your looks from one of your uncles, yeah?" he asks, lifting the tiny, squirming weight into his arms. The infant's cries quiet, and he closes those familiar eyes, resting against Donnie's arm, willing to allow the contact.

April is coming tomorrow to take the infant, and, abruptly, Donnie hates the idea.

Holding the infant is easy, calming him is easy. Donnie can suddenly see this possibility ahead of him, spiraling out, day by day, piece by piece, each step a challenge, but certainly doable. They could do it . . . but should they?

Feeling like a passive observer, he hadn't really had a chance to voice his opinion about where this child should go, or even figure one out . . . It is a gray area. They've adapted well to their surroundings, he and his brothers, and it wouldn't be the unsanitary, dangerous, and at times disgusting, life of the sewers they stumbled their way through when they were young. As long as they have this home – but how many times has their home been destroyed? And how many opportunities would they be unable to offer? A legal identity, proper schooling, not without the mask of April or Casey or some other human connection – it's a headache.

But they could make it work. If they wanted. And it could be happy. But would it be selfish of them? Unfair?

Again, Donnie reaches the conclusion that there is no right answer. Only time will reveal what should've been done, could've been done. The best he can do, right now, is keep the infant safe, and warm, and fed.

"We could hold on to him," April says the next day, looking down at the child, who discovered his hand at some point in the early morning and can't seem to stop sticking it in his mouth, staring back up at her face.

"No," Leo says. He hasn't been able to even look at the infant, standing from a safe distance, across the room. "That'll just make things harder."

April stares at him, pained, then back to Donnie. She seems to want to say something, then reconsiders. It takes three months to formalize the adoption, a young couple in SoHo, an artist and an accountant. They've just purchased their own loft, and, optimistically, already a baby's room already furnished.

"He's never going to forgive us when he finds out," Donnie says.

"He'll forgive you," Leo says.

Donnie watches Leo leave. He can't understand how Leo can be so sure he's right, willing to hang for it. How Mikey can be so sure it's wrong, willing to hate for it.

He ends up in Raph's room, curling up next to Raph, who wakes. He recognizes the pain in Donnie's face and tugs him close, mumbling sleepy, instinctual comfort."S'alright, Don."

After everything, it's enough to make Donnie's sting, and he just hugs his brother back.

~

At first Leo thinks Raph's projecting his feelings, they're so loud and in Leo's head, all the time. Then realizes, no, Raph's simply not blocking them. His impeccable wall, the one he maintained at all costs, especially against Leo, is cracked, crumbled. Demolished. His emotions wash over Leo without filter, pure and strong and overwhelming. Devastating.

Leo wants to put Raph somewhere private, far away, where his brother can slowly put the pieces back together, until his wall is solid and whole and healthy again. He realizes how close this is to the captivity Raph just escaped and feels a touch of hysterical laughter coming on.

But he doesn't have to ask how Raph feels about the eggs, the conflicted tsunami of emotion feels like it could knock Leo off his feet when it comes up.

All Raph says, though, in a carefully guarded tone, "You didn't – didn't break em?"

"No, they're here with us," Leo says. "But they were out in the cold for a while, Raph."

Relief, fear, sadness, disgust, humiliation, shame, failure, loss, all surge up in his brother, and he shakes his head, hiding his expression.

"If the eggs make it, if they survive . . . how would you feel about that?" Leo asks.

Raph just shakes his head, "That's a fucking messed up thing to ask, bro. Not much I can do about it either way."

"I know. But everything about this is messed up, Raph. I have to know."

"I don't fucking know," Raph snarls, but he's in tears before he finishes, hands at his eyes, and he's crying. Leo has him, holding him close, listening to him try to sort out his feelings, trying to convey them, but all he can do is stutter. "I don't – they – shouldn'ta happened, they – but I – I can't just – "

Leonardo's spends hours dissecting his own feelings, to the point of almost disgusting over analysis. Raph rarely ever sits down and contemplates his own emotions, and the combination leaves Leo much more prepared to slide through Raph's mind, make sense of the garbled, powerful, wailing mess.

The relief he's afraid of approaching, the shame that immediately flares up, blocking him from anything else. Raph can't say it, any more than he can look after those eggs. It's not in him to do either, his pride, his loyalty to family, his shattered sense of self, have him firmly trapped, unable to stay, and unable to go. He can't move forward toward letting the eggs go out of crippling shame. He can't embrace the eggs fully because of the intense pain.

Leo actually feels a profound wealth of calm settle over him, holding Raphael and knowing, now, exactly what his little brother needs from him. He can give it. He can be hated. He can make this call, and never, ever be forgiven. Leo can take that weight.

Raph is clinging to Leo's back, scrabbling for purchase against his shell, shaking his head, unable to speak.

"It's okay," Leo says. "I've got this."

An almost stupid surge of pride when he feels Raph cling to that, trusting, or wanting to trust, Leo's words. His big brother will make it better.


End file.
